What one should take away from video is the advancement of 3d
printers and that in near future the material media
that will be used in 3D printing will eventually incorporate
cintered metals on a matrix of carbon filaments that will equal parts
that are now turned out on lathe.

Old Zen painting of bearded Priest with raised arm and hand in Nukite:
Title is Old Man Pointing the Way.

Or as the caption on old cartoon of hunter pointing to fleeing rabbit at his
hound is staring at his finger: "Look at where I am pointing not at my finger".

Just thought I would add some 3d printed suppressor videos, i haven't been on the site for a some time now. By the way there's a company that has the patent on monolithic printed suppressors. You'll need to find a way around it or they might send you a nastygram.

Excellent question. The main point in the patent is that it is additively manufactured and I suppose the USPTO wasn't educated enough on the technology at the time to realize that this probably wasn't worthy of a patent. The patent owners don't actually manufacture anything as far as I can tell and are just wanting to get licensing from the patent. There are other patents to be aware of such as a 4 sided suppressor, five sided suppressor, six sided suppressor, seven sided suppressor, eight, etc. Designs on the outside are patented, even geometric shapes such as a hexagon. These don't really have much substance but they will all contact you if they discover that you are using something in their patent. So for the greed of a few, the advancement and innovation is stifled.

At least with Additive manufacturing you can usually come up with an easy way around these petty disputes.

In countries without the $200 tax I can see 3d printed plastic silencers making a lot of sense. Print one up, shoot starlings or whatever garden vermin 'till it wears enough to get loud, repeat as the spirit moves you.

jlwilliams wrote:In countries without the $200 tax I can see 3d printed plastic silencers making a lot of sense. Print one up, shoot starlings or whatever garden vermin 'till it wears enough to get loud, repeat as the spirit moves you.

I don't believe it's, necessarily, about plastic suppressors. Metal sintered designs have been out for a little while, now. They're not cheap or quick to produce. With plastic, you could modify a design, print, and test, well before a metal version was finished. While the version shown could've been machined, the 3D printer allows the designer to break free of those restrictions.

T-Rex wrote:I don't believe it's, necessarily, about plastic suppressors. Metal sintered designs have been out for a little while, now. They're not cheap or quick to produce. With plastic, you could modify a design, print, and test, well before a metal version was finished. While the version shown could've been machined, the 3D printer allows the designer to break free of those restrictions.

Testing with plastic may or may not provide any usable test data because you may destroy it immediately.

Metal printing is getting much less expensive to use - if you are smart with your designs. One suppressor may be $3500 where 30 of the same design might be $7000 so you need a reason to do 30 and not just 1. And it may take 4 or 5 days to make all 30.

My suppressor designs are cost competitive with just about everyone elses' offerings (at least in Titanium and Inconel). At SHOT show 2018 when I showed the Ugly design for the first time, Ray from Thunderbeast stopped by and made the statement that he couldn't make his 338 for what I was selling mine for.
Production volume is currently a limiting factor for some. I can get approx 1500/yr from one machine however and I can mix and match designs, sizes, whatever, the machines care little about what you get them to make.